Authority of the Husband in the Home

[Guest Butero]

 Let's begin with the assertion that marriage is a covenant.  I agree with that.  It certainly is.  What is a covenant?  The Greek word for covenant is diatheke, and it means a contract.  Shiloh said, and I quote "Whereas the religious leaders treated marriage as a contract, the Bible treats marriage as a covenant."  This is the foundation for much of his message.  The problem is, a covenant and a contract are the exact same thing.  That alone destroys much of his argument.

A covenant or contract is basically an agreement between different parties.  The Old Testament word for covenant was beriyth, and it means a compact or league.  To be a covenant, both parties don't have to be looking out for what is best for each other or the other person at all.  Many covenants exist to protect each person as an individual, so again, these claims by Shiloh sound good on the surface until you do a little research with a Greek and Hebrew Dictionary.  Then they fall apart. 

 

First of all, the claim that covenant means "contract" isn't true.   Greek Scholar Spiros Zodihates in his Greek Dictionary published by AMG Publishers, explains diatheke this way:  "A covenant, but not in the sense that God came to an agreement or compromise with fallen man as if signing a contract. Rather, it involves the declaration of God's unconditional promise to make Abraham and his seed the recipients of certain blessings (Gen. 13:14-17; Gen. 15:18; Gen.17:7-8, Gen. 17:19-21; Gen. 21:12, Gen. 21:14; Gen. 22:2, Gen. 22:12)."

 

Gary Chapman gives, what I think is the best explanation of the differences between a covenant and a contract:  

 

“There are four general characteristics of contracts:

 

1. Contracts are often made for a limited period of time.

 

Although most marriage ceremonies involve the phrase, "till death do us part," many couples interpret that as, "We're committed to each other if this relationship is mutually beneficial."

 

2. Contracts often deal with specific actions.

 

Most informal contracts made within the marriage also deal with specific actions. Such informal agreements can be a positive way of living out a covenant marriage.

 

3. Contracts are based on an "If..., then...," mentality.

 

Couples with this mentality in which one spouse relies on the other spouse for happiness may struggle deeply in the first several years of their marriage.

 

4. Contracts are motivated by the desire to get something.

 

People sign a lease contract because they want to have a car. The salesman signs the contract because he wants the commission. Many conversations in marriage are motivated to get something.

Covenant Characteristics

 

A covenant, like a contract, is an agreement between two or more persons, but the nature of the agreement is different. The biblical pattern reveals five characteristics of covenants.

 

1. Covenants are initiated for the benefit of the other person.

 

Many of us can honestly say that we entered marriage motivated by the deep desire to benefit the person we were about to marry. Our intention was to make them happy. However, when needs aren't met, spouses can revert to a contract mentality.

 

2. In covenant relationships people make unconditional promises.

 

Covenant marriages are characterized by unconditional promises, such as those spoken in traditional wedding vows.

 

3. Covenant relationships are based on steadfast love.

 

In a marriage, steadfast love refuses to focus on the negative aspects of one's spouse. Steadfast love is a choice.

 

4. Covenant relationships view commitments as permanent.

 

Unquestionably the biblical ideal is one man and one woman married to each other for life. As Christians, we must not lower the ideal. This standard can only be attained if we practice the fifth characteristic of covenants.

 

5. Covenant relationships require confrontation and forgiveness.

 

These two responses are essential in a covenant marriage. Confrontation means holding the other person responsible for his or her actions. Forgiving means a willingness to lift the penalty and continue a loving, growing relationship. Ignoring the failures of your spouse isn't the road to marital growth.”  http://www.lifeway.com/Article/HomeLife-Marriage-Covenant-or-Contract

 

 

The only reason I am wasting my time with this junk article is to drive a stake through the heart of this false doctrine once and for all.  This article carries no more weight than that article I made up as an example about the streets of gold and the mansions in heaven.  There is nothing here to back up one word the author has said.  I don't care if he is sincere or not.  He is sincerely wrong.  Lets examine these points, and why they are false.  Also remember this, Shiloh's arguments are based on violations of the marriage covenant, so when this house of cards falls down, so does the rest of his false doctrine. 

1.  Covenants are initiated for the benefit of the other person.  Here is an example from scripture to prove that is not true.

And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?  And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee:  and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace:  thou art now the blessed of the LORD.  Genesis 26:27-29  This covenant was made out of fear for self preservation.  It was not initiated for the benefit of the other person.  Shiloh's answer to this is that it is the exception to the rule.  The author of this article simply is stating this is how it is for all covenants.  If there is one exception, the article is proven false.

2.  In covenants, people make unconditional promises.  I have no problem with point 2.  He doesn't bother to explain why he makes that point, nothing to back it up, but I won't challenge it.

3.  Covenant relationships are based on stedfast love.  The example I gave from Genesis 26 is not based on stedfast love, so this point is false.

4.  Covenant relationships view commitments as permanent.  I don't know if I agree with this or not, since I could see a covenant being worded in a way that is only temporary, but I am not going to waste time contesting that.

5.  Covenant relationships require confrontation and forgiveness.  There is nothing in the example I gave that shows forgiveness took place.  It was simply a people in fear for their safety seeking a covenant. 

Of course, the problem with all of these is there is nothing to back any of the points up, and now I have proven points 1,3 and 5 false with just one example.  The other argument is that a covenant is not a contract.  I have proven that false as well. 

Covenant-  An agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.  Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language

Covenant-  A mutual agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing certain acts.  The New Compact Bible Dictionary

Covenant- An agreement entered into by two or more persons or parties, a compact.  New International Webster's Dictionary of the English Language.  Notice that the word compact is in the definition. 

Compact-  Covenant, agreement, contract.

Contract- An agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified.  Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language.

Notice how the definition of contract and covenant are virtually word for word the same.

covenant (beriyth) A compact, confederacy, covenant, league.  Strong's Hebrew Dictionary.  Remember that the word compact means covenant or contract.

covenant (diatheke) A contract, covenant, testament.  Strong's Greek Dictionary

Not only is a covenant a contract according to multiple sources, but none of those definitions come close to matching up with Shiloh's article as to what a covenant is.  The article is 100 percent made up dribble.  I have proven it incorrect using an Bible example and multiple Dictionaries, using modern English and Hebrew and Greek.  The article is false. 

Lord willing, I will address the other stuff Shiloh said in my next post, but I felt I needed to get this behind us. 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

The only reason I am wasting my time with this junk article is to drive a stake through the heart of this false doctrine once and for all. 

This article carries no more weight than that article I made up as an example about the streets of gold and the mansions in heaven.

 

There is nothing here to back up one word the author has said.

 

I don't care if he is sincere or not.

 

He is sincerely wrong.

 

Lets examine these points, and why they are false.

 

Also remember this, Shiloh's arguments are based on violations of the marriage covenant, so when this house of cards falls down, so does the rest of his false doctrine.

 

 

 

Gary Chapman is not only a man who is well-educated and has a doctorate in his field of expertise, but he is the foremost marriage counselor in the US aside from the late, Gary Smalley.   But Butero rejects what he says out of hand so on that basis the man is wrong. 

 

 

 

1.Covenants are initiated for the benefit of the other person.  Here is an example from scripture to prove that is not true.

 

And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?  And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee:  and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace:  thou art now the blessed of the LORD.  Genesis 26:27-29  This covenant was made out of fear for self preservation.  It was not initiated for the benefit of the other person.  Shiloh's answer to this is that it is the exception to the rule.  The author of this article simply is stating this is how it is for all covenants.  If there is one exception, the article is proven false.

 

The incident we see here is a covenant between Isaac and Abimelech.   Gary Chapman is not making a theological treatise on covenants but is explaining the nature and character of covenants.   Abimelech made a covenant with Isaac out of fear he had for the God of Isaac.   Covenants were generally made with mutual benefits in mind.   A family with no business skills but had a marketable craft, would make a covenant with a family that were astute at business but had no product to sell.  Both families come together based on their mutual weaknesses in order to gain mutual benefits for each other.   Marriage is that covenant.   Covenants are never made where I never get any benefit, but people in covenant seek to bless each other.  Each covenant partner knows that the other is has his interests at heart.

 

This would have been true for Abimelech.   He knew that the God of Israel was real and that he needed to be in covenant with Isaac.  Both men would be blessed by the association.    It was not that Abimelech had purely selfish, self-centered motives.   Sure he was wanting to stay in God’s good graces.   But he didn’t need to be in covenant with Isaac to accomplish that.  As long as he didn’t bring harm to Isaac or his family, or property, he was never in any danger from the Lord.   When he offered to make covenant with Isaac, it was more than just fearing for his life.   It was more than just a mere contract.   The English language doesn’t have a word that can adequately describe what a covenant is.   Covenants in the Bible are far more based ideals like brotherhood, mercy and loving-kindness.   Those are words that describe the essential nature of covenants.   It’s something that is, for the most part, foreign to our culture and mindset.   We use covenants and contracts interchangeably in our lives.  In our world today, “covenant” is just a more formal and ceremonial way of referring to a contract.   

 

I had initially saw this passage in Genesis 26 as the exception to the rule but the more I studied out the passage, the more I realized that I had responded too hastily to Butero’s use of that example.   Covenants are always mutually beneficial.  Both Isaac and Abimelech would have jointly benefited from the agreement and Abimelech knew that he would have to bless Isaac and that he would be blessed as a result.  

 

Marriage is a covenant in which both people do (or should) benefit mutually.  It’s not selfish to want to be married to reap those benefits.  It’s only selfish when you want those benefits at the expense of the other person and have no intention of being a mutual partner in blessing the other person.

 

 

4. 

Covenant relationships view commitments as permanent.

 

I don't know if I agree with this or not, since I could see a covenant being worded in a way that is only temporary, but I am not going to waste time contesting that. [/quot

 

Biblical covenants were never temporary.   That was especially true of the blood covenants that were made.   Salt covenants were same way.   Some were conditional and some were not, but they were never temporary.   Marriage is not worded in any way in Scripture as temporary.   “What God has brought together, let no man tear asunder.”   God did not design marriage to be temporary.

 

 Covenant relationships require confrontation and forgiveness.  There is nothing in the example I gave that shows forgiveness took place.  It was simply a people in fear for their safety seeking a covenant. 

Again, you are using that example as the sole defining example of the covenant and you taking that alone as a refutation?    You are not even refuting what he is saying.   Why don’t you take biblical covenants like the ones God made prove your case with those???   Oh wait.  You can’t.

 

 

Of course, the problem with all of these is there is nothing to back any of the points up, and now I have proven points 1,3 and 5 false with just one example.

 

Actually, you didn’t prove anything.   You haven’t refuted what he said about covenants at all.   All you did was grab one example and made that working model while ignoring the Abraham, Mosaic, Davidic and New Covenants completely.   A good response would have included all of the major covenants to show that not even God Himself agrees with Dr. Chapman.

 

 

Covenant- 

An agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

 

Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language

 

Covenant-  A mutual agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing certain acts.  The New Compact Bible Dictionary

 

Covenant- An agreement entered into by two or more persons or parties, a compact.  New International Webster's Dictionary of the English Language.  Notice that the word compact is in the definition. 

 

Compact-  Covenant, agreement, contract.

 

Contract- An agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified.  Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language.

 

Notice how the definition of contract and covenant are virtually word for word the same.

 

Yes, that is true.  In our modern parlance, covenant and contract are interchangeable terms.   I have acknowledged that.   But using a modern dictionary to refer to biblical principles is hardly a competent approach to the Bible.   It shows that you are not really applying  any critical thinking skills to this.  

Covenants are cultural and we have an entirely different culture than what existed 4000-2000 years ago.  Covenants were not viewed the same way we look at contracts today.

 

 

covenant (beriyth) A compact, confederacy, covenant, league. 

Strong's Hebrew Dictionary.

 

Remember that the word compact means covenant or contract.

 

covenant (diatheke) A contract, covenant, testament.  Strong's Greek Dictionary

This only speaks to your inability to properly use sources like Strong’s Dictionary.    Strong’s is an exhaustive dictionary.   That means that it gives you EVERY possible biblical meaning of a particular word.   But what it doesn’t do is provide any kind of analytical data.   It doesn’t tell you about the different uses of the words, that don’t even show up in a dictionary.

 

Word usage always trumps word meaning.   And how a word is used is not going to appear in Strong’s dictionary, necessarily.  That’s why we also have other sources that go beyond Strong’s because Strong’s doesn’t give you the whole story.  

 

Yes, you can have compact or contract, but where in the Bible is the New Covenant a compact?   It isn’t.  It is not a confederacy, either.    The Abrahamic Noahic and Davidic covenants don’t follow those definitions either.   When you consider the fact that the Bible uses words like mercy, loving-kindness, and grace in connection to covenants, it certainly precludes them from simply be defined as “contracts.”

 

Just picking out the definition in Strong’s that you think makes your argument and running with that definition is an extremely careless and irresponsible use of a source like Strong’s.

 

 

The author of this article simply is stating this is how it is for all covenants. 

If there is one exception, the article is proven false

 

 

That is an irrational line of thinking.    The American Cancer Society tells us that smoking shortens our lives by 9 to 10 years and causes lung cancer and other health problems.    The comedian, George Burns lived to be at least 100 years old and didn’t have cancer.   He smoke and drank, in fact.   He beat the odds.   Does that mean we should just dismiss everything the American Cancer Society says if there is one exception that defies everything they say?

 

Even if there is an exception to the rule, the exception does not negate the rule.    Sometimes, people survive jumping out of airplanes when their chutes don’t open.   Does that negate the rule that when you jump out of a plane, you need a parachute??

[Guest Butero]

I just thought of something so obvious, I am kicking myself for not realizing it sooner.  I knew there was something wrong with point #4 Gary Chapman made about covenants.  I am kind of glad I didn't notice it before, because I have Shiloh's commentary too that "Biblical covenants are never temporary."  I am going to contest point #4.  The Old and New Testaments are both covenants.  The Bible tells us that the New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant, so unless Shiloh and Gary Chapman think we are still under the entirety of the Old Covenant, they can indeed be temporary. 

I am going to briefly address some of Shiloh's other false comments.  I did not dismiss Gary Chapman out of hand.  I gave evidence to prove he is wrong, including this new issue I have with point #4.  I gave definitions that are from the Hebrew and Greek, as well as modern definitions.  Shiloh continues to falsely claim they are all modern definitions when they are not.  So what if Gary Chapman claims to be some kind of authority on marriage?  There are a lot of people that claim to be authorities on all kinds of subjects that have huge followings that teach false doctrine.  To say Gary Chapman is an authority on marriage is no different than for me to claim Benny Henn is an authority on the way the Holy Spirit operates.  Big names don't mean the people are in the truth.  I could give a long list of people that teach false doctrines that have huge followings and claim to be experts.  Big deal.

I didn't need but one example to disprove the articles on covenants, but I add to that the Old and New Testaments as examples.  I don't see how anyone can truly say the New Testament is eternal, because things will change during the millennial reign of Christ, and again with the new heaven and new earth.  Covenants do have a beginning and ending in some cases.  Of course, if you want to believe we are still under the entire Old Testament, lets restore the animal sacrifices. 

[Guest shiloh357]

I just thought of something so obvious, I am kicking myself for not realizing it sooner.  I knew there was something wrong with point #4 Gary Chapman made about covenants.  I am kind of glad I didn't notice it before, because I have Shiloh's commentary too that "Biblical covenants are never temporary."  I am going to contest point #4.  The Old and New Testaments are both covenants.  The Bible tells us that the New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant, so unless Shiloh and Gary Chapman think we are still under the entirety of the Old Covenant, they can indeed be temporary. 

No, that's' not what was meant by temporary.    What was said about covenants not being temporary is that they were not made with the intent of only applying to certain generation or for a certain set of period of time like, say 10 years or something.    The relationship of the Old Covenant isn't that it was replaced by the New Covenant, because it wasn't.   The New Covenant has the essential elements that  the  Old Covenant had, but they are better.   In the Old Covenant, there was a law, a sacrifice, blood and a High Priest and salvation by grace through faith.   ALL of that is in the New Covenant.   The Bible doesn't say that the Old Covenant was replaced; it says that it was made obsolete by what was better in the New Covenant.

The old Model T  automobile is no longer road worthy.  You could not drive it on any interstate or on most city roads.   It was made obsolete by modern vehicles.  The need for automobiles was not replaced.  The need for the Model T was replaced by better cars and trucks.    We no longer live under the Old Covenant economy.  But the Old Covenant has not been replaced.   We still have God's law in operation, but we have the Holy Spirit empowering us to keep it.   We still have a sacrifice, blood and a High Priest, but all of those things are met in Jesus.  He is our sacrifice, and it His blood that cleanses and He is our High Priest standing as our Mediator, and just like they had under the Old Covenant we are still saved by grace through faith.   They had to look forward in faith, but we look back in faith at the finished work of the cross.

In the biblical covenantal system, covenants built on the previous ones.  The Noahic covenant didn't do away with the Adamic covenant.  The Abrahamic covenant didn't replace the Noahic.  The Mosaic didn't replace the Abrahamic and the Davidic didn't replace the Mosaic.   Neither does the New Covenant do away with any of those other covenants,  because God make promises that He is still bound to keep.    While there may be modifications over time to the covenants as the revelation of God's purpose continues to unfold, none of the covenants are "done away with" or replaced.

Having said that, all covenants will come to an end when we enter the New Heavens and new earth.   But that doesn't make the "temporary"  per se.   "Eternal" in terms of the covenants applies to the continuance of the world in which we live now.  When this world is gone, then the covenants made in this earth age will also cease.    But God's covenants are still in force because they have promises that God made to Israel and to all of humanity in those covenants that He must maintain, or his Name is reproached.   

I am going to briefly address some of Shiloh's other false comments.  I did not dismiss Gary Chapman out of hand. 

Initially, you  did.

 I gave definitions that are from the Hebrew and Greek, as well as modern definitions.  Shiloh continues to falsely claim they are all modern definitions when they are not. 

Yes, they are modern definitions and view of covenants  due to the fact that in our modern parlance "contract" and "covenant"  are used interchangeably.     But when God made covenants in the Bible they were not contracts.

 So what if Gary Chapman claims to be some kind of authority on marriage?  There are a lot of people that claim to be authorities on all kinds of subjects that have huge followings that teach false doctrine.  To say Gary Chapman is an authority on marriage is no different than for me to claim Benny Henn is an authority on the way the Holy Spirit operates.

Gary Chapman doesn't claim to be an authority on marriage.   He IS an authority on marriage and marriage counseling.   It's His entire career.   That you feel the need to dismiss him on the matter as if what he says is no different than a quack like Benny Hinn, only demonstrates the weakness of your argument.  In another thread, you dismissed the author of an article I provided due to the person's lack of authority in the subject matter, but when provided with an author recognized, at least nationally, as  an expert and someone who has decades of experience and the  educational credentials to support his authority, you dismiss him like you would the average crazy cultist.   It demonstrates the point I made in the other thread, that your dismissal of sources is based on the fact that you don't like what he says, but you can't really engage the material.   He has more authority in his little finger on the issues that concerning marriage than you will ever know.

 

[Guest Butero]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this.  It is not because I have no response, but I have been busy.  It is true I dismissed Gary Chapman right at the start, but not without reason.  I gave you reasons.  Before I even picked up a Dictionary, I knew something was wrong because I knew that a covenant was a contract.  That is why I was so quick with to the Dictionary in the first place.  I was confirming something I already knew to be true.  That was all it took to shoot down the entire article as false.  I have provided reasons why his article was wrong on 4 of 5 points.  I can give you additional examples of covenants that don't measure up to what he said they must.  I will give you one right now. 

After Joshua led the children of Israel into battle in Canaan, one group of individuals that lived there became afraid, so they pretended to be from a far country, and sought a peace treaty.  Joshua believed them, and in Joshua 9:15 it says, "And Joshua made a LEAGUE with them, to let them live:  and the princes of the congregation sware unto them."  The word translated to league is the Hebrew word beriyth, the same Hebrew word for covenant.  The actual definition is a compact, confederacy, covenant, league.  This is yet another covenant made out of fear and self-preservation, as was the one I mentioned in Genesis.  It is contrary to points 1, 3, and 5.  I am sure there are more examples I could give that show the article is false.  Also remember that Gary Chapman does nothing to back up any of his points.  I have proven them wrong through examples. 

Point 4 is the one about a covenant being permanent.  If we are to liken the Old Covenant or Old Testament to a Model T, you actually can choose to drive them on the road.  When I was a child, I rode in one that an antique dealer had.  We went down the road his store was located on.  I have seen people drive them to car shows.  Heck, I have seen people ride around in horse and buggies on the highways, which are just as slow as a Model T.  If the Old Covenant is like a Model T, and it is still in effect but just not up to today's vehicles, you should be able to be saved by choosing to live up under the law, as many Jewish people that reject Christ do today.  If the Old Covenant is still in effect, you could in theory choose to take it out for a drive and abandon the New Covenant and still be saved by keeping the law of Moses.  I don't happen to agree with that teaching, but it would be worth more discussion, so if Shiloh wants to start a thread on this in the Doctrinal Section, it could prove quite interesting. 

Before moving forward, let me briefly remind you of what I have shown to be true so far. 

1  The woman was created to be a help-meet to her husband.  It doesn't really matter if she is the weaker vessel or Wonder Woman, that is why she was created.

2  The Bible states that the husband will rule over his wife.  The word rule comes from the Hebrew word mashal and it means To rule, have dominion, govern, reign, have power.  It is the same word used in other places to show a literal King reigning over subjects.  No slight of hand from Shiloh will change that.  His main method of trying was to use his false covenant message from Gary Chapman that I have already showed to be untrue, so he really has nothing.  He is just trying to make excuses for ignoring the Dictionary definition, or as he puts it, "expanding" upon it.  That is so absurd when you think about it.  A definition is what it is.  Shiloh is trying to add to a definition to suit his purposes.  I told everyone this is what he would do before we started.  He is denying actual definitions mean what they say.  I really don't care about the word translated help-meet because I can still make my point either way, and this decree about the husband ruling over his wife took place after the woman was created as a result of the fall.  It supersedes anything else. 

3.  Ephesians 5:22-24 says, "Wives submit (hupotasso-to subordinate, to obey, be under obedience, be subject to, submit self unto) yourselves unto your own husbands, AS UNTO THE LORD.  For the husband is the head of the wife, EVEN AS CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH:  and he is the savior of the body.  Therefore AS THE CHURCH IS SUBJECT UNTO CHRIST, SO LET WIVES BE TO THEIR OWN HUSBANDS IN EVERY THING.(pas-all, any, every, the whole, all, always, thoroughly, whatsoever).  Without the extra-Biblical and false article Shiloh brought into the discussion, this is plain.  Before I continue, I know a Dictionary is extra-Biblical, but without having someone constantly saying the words don't mean what they obviously do say, I wouldn't need a Dictionary.  I can get by with the Bible alone.  Shiloh can do nothing without bringing in extra-Biblical materials.  If he was to leave out all extra-Biblical sources and stick with scripture, I would be more than happy to do so as well.  He would have no arguments.  This is saying that wives are to obey their husbands in the same manner the church obeys Christ in anything they say to do.  It is right there for everyone to see.  All Shiloh can do is come back and claim it doesn't mean what it says because of Gary Chapman's covenant teaching, which is extra- Biblical and proven false. 

This alone should be more than enough to prove I am correct, but I have more.  I will wait on Shiloh's next post before bringing more evidence into the discussion.  The one thing I want you to take from this so far is that the plain meaning of scripture shows my position is correct, and to even begin to make a case otherwise requires extra-Biblical teachings with nothing to back them up and that I have proven to be false. 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this. 

It is not because I have no response, but I have been busy.

 

It is true I dismissed Gary Chapman right at the start, but not without reason. I gave you reasons.  Before I even picked up a Dictionary, I knew something was wrong because I knew that a covenant was a contract.  That is why I was so quick with to the Dictionary in the first place. I was confirming something I already knew to be true.  That was all it took to shoot down the entire article as false. I have provided reasons why his article was wrong on 4 of 5 points. I can give you additional examples of covenants that don't measure up to what he said they must. I will give you one right now.

After Joshua led the children of Israel into battle in Canaan, one group of individuals that lived there became afraid, so they pretended to be from a far country, and sought a peace treaty.  Joshua believed them, and in Joshua 9:15 it says, "And Joshua made a LEAGUE with them, to let them live:  and the princes of the congregation sware unto them."  The word translated to league is the Hebrew word beriyth, the same Hebrew word for covenant.  The actual definition is a compact, confederacy, covenant, league.  This is yet another covenant made out of fear and self-preservation, as was the one I mentioned in Genesis.  It is contrary to points 1, 3, and 5.  I am sure there are more examples I could give that show the article is false.  Also remember that Gary Chapman does nothing to back up any of his points.  I have proven them wrong through examples.

 

I guess you don’t really read my responses because you completely ignore important points and instead choose to remake points I have responded to and you don’t actually respond to anything I have addressed.  

 

I said that while there may be examples of “horizontal”  man-made covenants between individuals in the Bible that don’t fit with what Gary Chapman demonstrates with regard to the nature and character of covenants,   Gary Chapman is working from the covenant model that GOD employs and He is using God’s covenants as the template for understanding the marriage covenant.   He is working from God’s use the term  covenant as it applies to His relationship with mankind.   And working from that model, Gary Chapman is exactly correct.

 

Your way of thinking is that if you can find even ONE example of a covenant in the Bible  that is made differently than what Chapman says, then EVERYTHING he says is wrong and that is simply untrue and rather irrational. 

 

The idea of a marriage as a covenant is offensive to some men because it means that they in covenant with a wife who is equal, not his inferior subordinate and it means that he doesn’t have the biblical right to break her will and mold her into an obedient servant to his will and his every whim.

 

 

 

Point 4 is the one about a covenant being permanent. If we are to liken the Old Covenant or Old Testament to a Model T, you actually can choose to drive them on the road.  When I was a child, I rode in one that an antique dealer had. We went down the road his store was located on. I have seen people drive them to car shows.  Heck, I have seen people ride around in horse and buggies on the highways, which are just as slow as a Model T.
  If the Old Covenant is like a Model T, and it is still in effect but just not up to today's vehicles, you should be able to be saved by choosing to live up under the law, as many Jewish people that reject Christ do today. If the Old Covenant is still in effect, you could in theory choose to take it out for a drive and abandon the New Covenant and still be saved by keeping the law of Moses. I don't happen to agree with that teaching, but it would be worth more discussion, so if Shiloh wants to start a thread on this in the Doctrinal Section, it could prove quite interesting.

 

 

 

This demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about what the Old Covenant was about.    The Model T is not road worthy.  If you took out on the Interstate, you would be ticketed. If you took it out on most city streets, you would be likely be ticketed because it is not safe to drive alongside modern automobiles.

 

But your response misses the point.  The point is that it was made obsolete by better automobiles.  The automobile was not “done away with”  because we had to shelve the Model T.   We have better cars and trucks now.    The invention of the cotton gin  didn’t do away with the need to deseed cotton.  It improved the process.     In the same way, the New Covenant didn’t do away with a sacrifice, blood or a High Priest.  We have a better sin offering that was made once for all.  We have the sinless blood of Jesus and He is our High Priest making intercession for us. 

 

No one was saved by keeping the law in the Old Covenant.  Jews keeping the law today has nothing to do with the Old Covenant.   Jesus didn’t do away with how they were saved in the Old Covenant;  it was still salvation by grace through faith just like it is for us.   So your comments really demonstrate a fundamental error in how you look at the Old Covenant.

 

The Old Covenant isn’t done away with because the Old Covenant has more than just sacrifices in it.  It is in the Old Covenant that God made eternal promises to Israel that would be canceled if the Old Covenant was done away.  If that were to happen, then God is shown to be a liar and His Name is reproached among the nations.   If God canceled out the promises he made to Israel, we have no reason to believe He might not cancel out the promises He has made to us, as well.    Covenants are permanent, unlike contracts.   

 

And if you want to portray covenants as temporary contracts, is that how we really want people thinking of their marriage as they stand there on their wedding day?  Do want them making a forever covenant, or viewing their marriage is a contract they can get out of?   One of the reasons divorce is so rampant is because people view marriage as a contract that can be made  null and void and instead  of working things out, they can just get a divorce when the glow and luster of marriage has faded out.   It is precisely because people view the marital covenant as a contract that they devalue it and why so many marriages are shipwrecked.

 

Before moving forward, let me briefly remind you of what I have shown to be true so far. The woman was created to be a help-meet to her husband.  It doesn't really matter if she is the weaker vessel or Wonder Woman, that is why she was created.

 

Well, what you did not show was true was that “help-meet”  is equal to “side-kick.”   You are looking at the relationship of the help-meet as the inferior member of the relationship.  Your view is analogous to the expert craftsman vs. the guy he hires to stand there and hold his tools.  He has the knowledge and skills and his “help-meet”  is the unskilled, unknowledgeable laborer.  But that is not how the word “ezer” is used throughout the Bible.  “Ezer” is used most of the time as a reference to God as man’s helper.   Ezer is the “helper” not in the inferior sense, but rather in the sense of the one who provides for what is lacking in the person needing help.   God designed the wife to meet needs in her husband.  He designed man to need her help because she makes him better and he lacks things that God, by design, made sure he can only find in his wife.   Your view diminishes the wife to a lackey or hapless tag-along.

 

It has nothing to do with her being the weaker vessel or not.   She may be weaker physically, but she is not weaker at all in a spiritual context.   She is just as much made in the image and likeness of God as man was.  She is not inferior, not by a longshot.

 

 

Ephesians 5:22-24 says, "Wives submit (hupotasso-to subordinate, to obey, be under obedience, be subject to, submit self unto) yourselves unto your own husbands, AS UNTO THE LORD. 

For the husband is the head of the wife, EVEN AS CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore AS THE CHURCH IS SUBJECT UNTO CHRIST, SO LET WIVES BE TO THEIR OWN HUSBANDS IN EVERY THING.(pas-all, any, every, the whole, all, always, thoroughly, whatsoever).  Without the extra-Biblical and false article Shiloh brought into the discussion, this is plain  Before I continue, I know a Dictionary is extra-Biblical, but without having someone constantly saying the words don't mean what they obviously do say, I wouldn't need a Dictionary.  I can get by with the Bible alone. Shiloh can do nothing without bringing in extra-Biblical materials.  If he was to leave out all extra-Biblical sources and stick with scripture, I would be more than happy to do so as well  He would have no arguments.  This is saying that wives are to obey their husbands in the same manner the church obeys Christ in anything they say to d  It is right there for everyone to see.

 

All Shiloh can do is come back and claim it doesn't mean what it says because of Gary Chapman's covenant teaching, which is extra- Biblical and proven false.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You completely over-simplify my argument.  I have used more Scripture than you have and I have been using the same Scripture you have been using.   To say that everything I say is based on Gary Chapman and that I have only presented Gary Chapman and extra-biblical material is a lie and easily demonstrated as false by anyone who cares to examine my posts.  And you have, despite your claims, not proven anything.   You misuse dictionaries and don’t take into account the difference in culture and the fact that God’s covenants don’t fit in your narrow definition of a covenant. 

 

First of all, my take on the word “rule”  doesn’t have anything to do with Gary Chapman, or at least not as much as you keep claim that it does.    My argument against your take on the word rule also has nothing to do with what the word means.   It means EXACTLY what you say it means.   So the meaning of the word is not in dispute.   I have only said that multiple times and you obviously refuse to acknowledge that fact.

 

What I have repeatedly said, which you have ignored, is that Gen. 3:16 is not the Bible’s final word on marriage.   For that reason, when I take into account everything the Bible says about the relationship of husband and wife, then I have a better understand regarding how the word “rule” is applied.    My point of contention has to do with the application of “rule”  not the meaning of the word.   The use and application of a particular word or phrase in Scripture is ALWAYS more important than what a word means.  We apply words in ways that don’t agree with what the word actually means.   For example, we can use the word “love” to mean, “hate.”  “I just ‘love’ it when someone cuts me off in traffic.”    “I just ‘love’ it when they raise my taxes.”  So, if I take “love”  from a purely one dimensional approach the way you do with the word “rule,”  and never take into account how the word “love” is applied, I could easily misunderstand what someone is saying.

 

The one dimensional use of the world, “rule”  would mean that the husband is to rule over his wife with an iron fist and she is vassal servant and must serve him with fearful submission like a common slave.    That’s  the way you apparently think the relationship of husband and wife works.   And I guess if Gen. 3:16 were all that the Bible had to say about marriage, you could make that case.

 

But Eph. 5:21-6:9 destroys that one dimensional notion about the word, “rule.”   The entire line of thought precludes the husband from being an autocratic ruler.   In that passage, the husband is a servant “ruler”  or what we would call, a “servant leader.”    He “rules”  but from the vantage point of humility.  He rules over his wife to protect, provide and nurture her.  He “rules” over her to make sure that he is trustworthy and faithful spiritual head who will lead from the front to serve the Lord to whom He submits.   It has nothing to do with being tyrant who is free to be as unreasonable and controlling and tyrannical as he wants to be.   It is not a “rule by decree”  relationship.     The woman submits to her husband, but the Husband is directed as to what kind of person he is to be.

 

Too many men see the “submit” verse as a blanket permission for them to be jerks and the wife just has to sit down and take it.  There is, according to v. 21 a mutual submission taking place in that she serves him and he serves her.   Your take on what being a ruler means is backwards and unbiblical in its application.

 

 

 

 

[Guest Butero]

 

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this. 

It is not because I have no response, but I have been busy.

 

It is true I dismissed Gary Chapman right at the start, but not without reason. I gave you reasons.  Before I even picked up a Dictionary, I knew something was wrong because I knew that a covenant was a contract.  That is why I was so quick with to the Dictionary in the first place. I was confirming something I already knew to be true.  That was all it took to shoot down the entire article as false. I have provided reasons why his article was wrong on 4 of 5 points. I can give you additional examples of covenants that don't measure up to what he said they must. I will give you one right now.

After Joshua led the children of Israel into battle in Canaan, one group of individuals that lived there became afraid, so they pretended to be from a far country, and sought a peace treaty.  Joshua believed them, and in Joshua 9:15 it says, "And Joshua made a LEAGUE with them, to let them live:  and the princes of the congregation sware unto them."  The word translated to league is the Hebrew word beriyth, the same Hebrew word for covenant.  The actual definition is a compact, confederacy, covenant, league.  This is yet another covenant made out of fear and self-preservation, as was the one I mentioned in Genesis.  It is contrary to points 1, 3, and 5.  I am sure there are more examples I could give that show the article is false.  Also remember that Gary Chapman does nothing to back up any of his points.  I have proven them wrong through examples.

 

I guess you don’t really read my responses because you completely ignore important points and instead choose to remake points I have responded to and you don’t actually respond to anything I have addressed.  

 

I said that while there may be examples of “horizontal”  man-made covenants between individuals in the Bible that don’t fit with what Gary Chapman demonstrates with regard to the nature and character of covenants,   Gary Chapman is working from the covenant model that GOD employs and He is using God’s covenants and the template for understanding the marriage covenant.   He is working from God’s use the term  covenant as it applies to His relationship with mankind.   And working from that model, Gary Chapman is exactly correct.

 

Your way of thinking is that if you can find even ONE example of a covenant in the Bible  that is made differently than what Chapman says, then EVERYTHING he says is wrong and that is simply untrue and rather irrational. 

 

The idea of a marriage as a covenant is offensive to some men because it means that they in covenant with a wife who is equal, not his inferior subordinate and it means that he doesn’t have the biblical right to break her will and mold her into an obedient servant to his will and his every whim.

 

 

 

Point 4 is the one about a covenant being permanent. If we are to liken the Old Covenant or Old Testament to a Model T, you actually can choose to drive them on the road.  When I was a child, I rode in one that an antique dealer had. We went down the road his store was located on. I have seen people drive them to car shows.  Heck, I have seen people ride around in horse and buggies on the highways, which are just as slow as a Model T.
  If the Old Covenant is like a Model T, and it is still in effect but just not up to today's vehicles, you should be able to be saved by choosing to live up under the law, as many Jewish people that reject Christ do today. If the Old Covenant is still in effect, you could in theory choose to take it out for a drive and abandon the New Covenant and still be saved by keeping the law of Moses. I don't happen to agree with that teaching, but it would be worth more discussion, so if Shiloh wants to start a thread on this in the Doctrinal Section, it could prove quite interesting.

 

 

 

This demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about what the Old Covenant was about.    The Model T is not road worthy.  If you took out on the Interstate, you would be ticketed. If you took it out on most city streets, you would be likely be ticketed because it is not safe to drive alongside modern automobiles.

 

But your response misses the point.  The point is that it was made obsolete by better automobiles.  The automobile was not “done away with”  because we had to shelve the Model T.   We have better cars and trucks now.    The invention of the cotton gin  didn’t do away with the need to deseed cotton.  It improved the process.     In the same way, the New Covenant didn’t do away with a sacrifice, blood or a High Priest.  We have a better sin offering that was made once for all.  We have the sinless blood of Jesus and He is our High Priest making intercession for us. 

 

No one was saved by keeping the law in the Old Covenant.  Jews keeping the law today has nothing to do with the Old Covenant.   Jesus didn’t do away with how they were saved in the Old Covenant;  it was still salvation by grace through faith just like it is for us.   So your comments really demonstrate a fundamental error in how you look at the Old Covenant.

 

The Old Covenant isn’t done away with because the Old Covenant has more than just sacrifices in it.  It is in the Old Covenant that God made eternal promises to Israel that would be canceled if the Old Covenant was done away.  If that were to happen, then God is shown to be a liar and His Name is reproached among the nations.   If God canceled out the promises he made to Israel, we have no reason to believe He might not cancel out the promises He has made to us, as well.    Covenants are permanent, unlike contracts.   

 

And if you want to portray covenants as temporary contracts, is that how we really want people thinking of their marriage as they stand there on their wedding day?  Do want them making a forever covenant, or viewing their marriage is a contract they can get out of?   One of the reasons divorce is so rampant is because people view marriage as a contract that can be made  null and void and instead  of working things out, they can just get a divorce when the glow and luster of marriage has faded out.   It is precisely because people view the marital covenant as a contract that they devalue it and why so many marriages are shipwrecked.

 

Before moving forward, let me briefly remind you of what I have shown to be true so far. The woman was created to be a help-meet to her husband.  It doesn't really matter if she is the weaker vessel or Wonder Woman, that is why she was created.

 

Well, what you did not show was true was that “help-meet”  is equal to “side-kick.”   You are looking at the relationship of the help-meet as the inferior member of the relationship.  Your view is analogous to the expert craftsman vs. the guy he hires to stand there and hold his tools.  He has the knowledge and skills and his “help-meet”  is the unskilled, unknowledgeable laborer.  But that is not how the word “ezer” is used throughout the Bible.  “Ezer” is used most of the time as a reference to God as man’s helper.   Ezer is the “helper” not in the inferior sense, but rather in the sense of the one who provides for what is lacking in the person needing help.   God designed the wife to meet needs in her husband.  He designed man to need her help because she makes him better and he lacks things that God, by design, made sure he can only find in his wife.   Your view diminishes the wife to a lackey or hapless tag-along.

 

It has nothing to do with her being the weaker vessel or not.   She may be weaker physically, but she is not weaker at all in a spiritual context.   She is just as much made in the image and likeness of God as man was.  She is not inferior, not by a longshot.

 

 

Ephesians 5:22-24 says, "Wives submit (hupotasso-to subordinate, to obey, be under obedience, be subject to, submit self unto) yourselves unto your own husbands, AS UNTO THE LORD. 

For the husband is the head of the wife, EVEN AS CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore AS THE CHURCH IS SUBJECT UNTO CHRIST, SO LET WIVES BE TO THEIR OWN HUSBANDS IN EVERY THING.(pas-all, any, every, the whole, all, always, thoroughly, whatsoever).  Without the extra-Biblical and false article Shiloh brought into the discussion, this is plain  Before I continue, I know a Dictionary is extra-Biblical, but without having someone constantly saying the words don't mean what they obviously do say, I wouldn't need a Dictionary.  I can get by with the Bible alone. Shiloh can do nothing without bringing in extra-Biblical materials.  If he was to leave out all extra-Biblical sources and stick with scripture, I would be more than happy to do so as well  He would have no arguments.  This is saying that wives are to obey their husbands in the same manner the church obeys Christ in anything they say to d  It is right there for everyone to see.

 

All Shiloh can do is come back and claim it doesn't mean what it says because of Gary Chapman's covenant teaching, which is extra- Biblical and proven false.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You completely over-simplify my argument.  I have used more Scripture than you have and I have been using the same Scripture you have been using and .   To say that everything I say is based on Gary Chapman and that I have only presented Gary Chapman and extra-biblical material is a lie and easily demonstrated as false by anyone who cares to examine my posts.  And you have, despite your claims, not proven anything.   You misuse dictionaries and don’t take into account the difference in culture and the fact that God’s covenants don’t fit in your narrow definition of a covenant. 

 

First of all, my take on the word “rule”  doesn’t have anything to do with Gary Chapman, or at least not as much as you keep claim that it does.    My argument against your take on the word rule also has nothing to do with what the word means.   It means EXACTLY what you say it means.   So the meaning of the word is not in dispute.   I have only said that multiple times and you obviously refuse to acknowledge that fact.

 

What I have repeatedly said, which you have ignored, is that Gen. 3:16 is not the Bible’s final word on marriage.   For that reason, when I take into account everything the Bible says about the relationship of husband and wife, then I have a better understand regarding how the word “rule” is applied.    My point of contention has to do with the application of “rule”  not the meaning of the word.   The use and application of a particular word or phrase in Scripture is ALWAYS more important than what a word means.  We apply words in ways that don’t agree with what the word actually means.   For example, we can use the word “love” to mean, “hate.”  “I just ‘love’ it when someone cuts me off in traffic.”    “I just ‘love’ it when they raise my taxes.”  So, if I take “love”  from a purely one dimensional approach the way you do with the word “rule,”  and never take into account how the word “love” is applied, I could easily misunderstand what someone is saying.

 

The one dimensional use of the world, “rule”  would mean that the husband is to rule over his wife with an iron fist and she is vassal servant and must serve him with fearful submission like a common slave.    That’s  the way you apparently think the relationship of husband and wife works.   And I guess if Gen. 3:16 were all that the Bible had to say about marriage, you could make that case.

 

But Eph. 5:21-6:9 destroys that one dimensional notion about the word, “rule.”   The entire line of thought precludes the husband from being an autocratic ruler.   In that passage, the husband is a servant “ruler”  or what we would call, a “servant leader.”    He “rules”  but from the vantage point of humility.  He rules over his wife to protect, provide and nurture her.  He “rules” over her to make sure that he is trustworthy and faithful spiritual head who will lead from the front to serve the Lord to whom He submits.   It has nothing to do with being tyrant who is free to be as unreasonable and controlling and tyrannical as he wants to be.   It is not a “rule by decree”  relationship.     The woman submits to her husband, but the Husband is directed as to what kind of person he is to be.

 

Too many men see the “submit” verse as a blanket permission for them to be jerks and the wife just has to sit down and take it.  There is, according to v. 21 a mutual submission taking place in that she serves him and he serves her.   Your take on what being a ruler means is backwards and unbiblical in its application.

 

 

 

 

Before moving on to anything else, I need to once again re-visit covenants.  What I have been able to show concerning Gary Chapman's article is that he made a blanket statement about covenants as opposed to contracts.  I have shown that according to the Dictionary, a covenant is a contract.  I have shown that 4 of the 5 points Gary Chapmans made about what a covenant is are false, because he made this across the board.  He doesn't say there are any exceptions.  Shiloh is making that claim for Gary Chapman, but Gary Chapman simply says here is the difference between a covenant and a contract.  Shiloh does base much of his beliefs on marriage on Gary Chapman's view of the marriage covenant. 

Here comes a huge problem for Shiloh, and for anyone who is divorced and has re-married for any reason.  Shiloh has claimed that if the husband or wife violates the marriage covenant, they can get a divorce.  He has even gone so far as to claim just looking on someone to lust is grounds for divorce as it violates the marriage covenant.  Here is the problem.  According to Shiloh, the marriage covenant is forever and permanent.  He asks me the question, "Do we want (speaking of couples getting married) them making a forever covenant, or viewing their marriage as a contract they can get out of?"  He then goes on to say that it is because of people looking at marriage as a contract, and by the way, according to the Greek Dictionary, a covenant is a contract, divorce is so rampant.  I am harder against divorce than Shiloh is.  I don't consider it Biblical unless their is physical adultery taking place.  I don't view abuse as grounds and certainly not lust in one's heart.  Shiloh has been going around saying that precisely because marriage is a covenant, if someone violates the covenant, they are free to divorce and re-marry.  This makes no sense at all.  If all covenants are permanent as Shiloh and Gary Chapman claim, then if you got married one time, you entered into a permanent covenant.  It makes no difference what happened to cause the marriage to break up.  It is a covenant, and covenants are forever.  If you re-married, you are an adulterer for life.  That is, if you accept what Shiloh says in this thread. 

Now, lets examine something else Shiloh said that is utterly false.  Being in a covenant doesn't make the wife equal to the husband.  We are in a covenant relationship with God himself.  We are not equal to God.  If Shiloh was right, we are equal partners with God, and we are not the least bit inferior to him.  Next time God tells me to do something, in his Word or perhaps audibly, I can simply remind him we are equal partners in a covenant, and I refuse to do it.  I then can tell him to submit to me.  You know about that mutual submission stuff in scripture.  What can he say?  He made a covenant with us.  Here is the thing I wait on with great curiosity.  If covenants are permanent, as opposed to contracts, this bolsters Shiloh's view that we have unconditional eternal security.  If on the other hand, if Shiloh reverts back to how he was saying if a man or woman violates the marriage covenant, it breaks it, then it stands to reason if we sin and violate our covenant relationship with God, we lose our salvation.  I can't wait to hear how Shiloh tries to wiggle out of this one.  I am sure he will find a creative way, but those of you who are divorced and re-married, and you are cheering Shiloh on in this debate, you might want to think twice about what his view means for you. 

Shiloh is a master at showing how words don't mean what they say.  Look at the example he gave about turning love to hate.  The next time I hear someone quote John 3:16, I can simply turn it around and say love means hate and that God hates the world.  I can turn everything around to suit my fancy whenever I want and make the plain meaning of scripture null and void by slight of hand.  That is what he is doing.  He is using slight of hand to deceive.  I knew that this kind of tactic was to be expected, and I also knew Shiloh would never admit to being wrong.  What I am counting on is that those reading through this thread will be smart enough to see through what he is doing, and I still believe that those who are sincere will know Shiloh is wrong.  That is the only reason I am doing this. 

I want to move on to another quick point.  What we are dealing with today is something that is older than the world as we know it.  We are dealing with a sin that took place before Adam and Eve were created.  That sin is rebellion.  God establishes a certain order, and people choose to rebel against that order.  In this thread, we are discussing wives who choose to rebel against their husband's authority.  The word rebel in the Hebrew is marah, and it means to resist, disobey, bitter, change, provoke.  The Bible makes it clear that the husband is given authority to rule over his wife, so when she refuses to obey, this is rebellion.  The Bible actually states that the sin of rebellion is the equal of the sin of witchcraft. 

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.  1 Samuel 15:23

Shiloh has stated that it is abuse to point out that when a wife disobeys her husband, she is in rebellion.  Shiloh loves to go around being bold and telling it like it is in pointing out things he sees others doing wrong.  Here are a few words Shiloh has used, and people have come forward to talk about how nice it is he is straight forward.  He used the words shallow, backwards, and repressive.  He accused me of having a tyrannical approach to scripture and using sloppy theology.  If that is an example of simply being bold and passionate and telling it as he sees it, I would suggest calling a rebellious wife rebellious is doing the same thing.  I am just calling a spade a spade. 

Again, as we examine Shiloh's arguments, all he is doing is trying to say the plain meaning of scripture is not so plain.  It always means something different than the obvious.  If the shoe is on the other foot, and Shiloh is armed with scriptures to back him up, then they mean exactly what they say, and he jumps on those who disagree and accuses them of refusing to acknowledge the truth, but in this case, the scriptures and the Dictionaries work against him, so here comes his what I will call creative theology.  He would make a great defense lawyer for guilty clients.  He would be good at that.  If I was guilty of a crime, I would want him on my side in court. 

Here is a hypothetical example of the husband exercising his God given authority.  Lets say he doesn't believe that his wife should wear make-up.  I am using this because it is something I have no concern over, but some do.  I even remember an old bluegrass song called "Let The Church Roll On."  Flatt and Scruggs sang it, and one of the lines said, "There's a woman in the church, (Oh my Lord), has paint on her face (Oh my Lord), what shall we do?  Take a rag and wipe it off, and let the church roll on."  I would play it on the radio sometimes.  I got a kick out of it.  The point is, some men believe this to be sinful, especially in holiness circles.  Lets suppose his wife disagrees and wants to wear make-up.  If he forbids her to do so, and she wears it anyway, she is guilty of rebellion and is no better in the sight of God than a practicing witch.  That is a fact.  Shiloh claims he is taking marriage teachings as a whole to come up with his doctrine.  He is not.  He is making things up by bringing in extra-Biblical false teaching and twisting scripture.  It is mostly the product of false teaching, and no, he is not using more scripture than I am.  I also plan to bring a lot more into this discussion soon.  I am just trying to get past this false covenant teaching first that he won't seem to admit is wrong.  Back to the make-up example.  What does the Bible say about the husband's authority? 

...and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.  Genesis 3:16b

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.  For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.  1 Timothy 2:12-14

A lot of people use this to prohibit women from teaching Sunday School or preaching, but that is not what it is primarily referring to.  It is saying that Eve was the one who was deceived, and as a result, God placed her husband over her as her instructor, not the other way around.  If there is a disagreement over something like make-up, he is the final authority.  This may seem a bit unfair, in that all women are paying for Eve being deceived, but it is no more unfair than all mankind having to suffer all the other curses because of Adam and Eve's failures.  Of course, there is no reason to believe any of us would have done better in the same position, so I am not looking to play the blame game here.  I am just pointing out why the man is given the final say on things like this. 

Shiloh did make another partially false statement.  God created Adam in his image, not Eve.  Notice what it says in 1 Corinthians 11:7

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he is the image and glory of God:  but the woman is the glory of the man. 

Now, I would imagine what Shiloh will do is go back to Genesis 2:27, where it says,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Adam, the first man was created in God's image, but Eve was created later on.  The Bible doesn't teach Eve was created in the image of God.  Man is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.  That is very clear according to 1 Corinthians.  Even though there has been controversy over it, God is male.  How do I know that?  Because one day I asked him after a debate on the subject came up, and he gave me the answer.  God came to us in the form of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is God and he is male.  You never see God depicted as a female, not even once.  Gnostics teach a male and female side of God, and this false doctrine has been spread by people like Kenneth Copeland, but it is not Biblical.  There is no scripture that backs up Shiloh's claim that the woman was created the equal of the man.  He is once again using his false and extra-Biblical covenant teaching to convey that belief.  He says that because they are in a covenant, they are equal, but as I pointed out, man is in a covenant with God and we are not his equal.  With that, I plan to take a couple of days off from this debate, but I look forward to reading Shiloh's reply.  I hope he comes through with an admission that he was wrong about all covenants being eternal for the sake of those who are divorced and re-married, because otherwise, he leaves you very little hope. 

 

 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

Before moving on to anything else, I need to once again re-visit covenants.  What I have been able to show concerning Gary Chapman's article is that he made a blanket statement about covenants as opposed to contracts.  I have shown that according to the Dictionary, a covenant is a contract.  I have shown that 4 of the 5 points Gary Chapmans made about what a covenant is are false, because he made this across the board.  He doesn't say there are any exceptions.  Shiloh is making that claim for Gary Chapman, but Gary Chapman simply says here is the difference between a covenant and a contract.  Shiloh does base much of his beliefs on marriage on Gary Chapman's view of the marriage covenant. 

 

Gary Chapman didn’t make a blanket statement about covenants vs. contracts.   Gary Chapman made a general statement the biblical character of covenants vs. our modern idea concerning the character of contracts.  What you are trying to refute is NOT what Gary Chapman said.   You are trying to refute an argument he didn’t make, in the first place.  Chapman didn’t say, “all covenants in the Bible are exactly like this, 100% of the time, and you will not find a covenant that is not this way.”   He was making a general statement that did not preclude exceptions.     Your argument sets up a false standard that unless every single covenant in the Bible follows his five points, then his entire argument is false.  Would you want to be held to that exact standard?   You are setting up a standard that insulates you from actually addressing what he said about covenants because, you can’t really address the specific things he said, AND because your view of marriage isn’t covenantal, and so you have to find a way to justify your rejection of a covenantal view of marriage. 

 

The bulk of my arguments are not based on what Gary Chapman said.  I used him to point to the fact that marriage isn’t a “sign on the dotted line”   contract.   It is a covenant and the nature of the biblical covenants that God instituted in the Bible are transferrable to the covenant of marriage.   God has a biblical covenant template that applies as much to marriage as it does to any of the other covenants that God instituted.   The nature of the covenants reflect the nature of God.  Unlike contracts, covenants were not made to be broken and God’s covenants, which is the model Gary Chapman is working from, are eternal as long as we are alive.

 

 

Here comes a huge problem for Shiloh, and for anyone who is divorced and has re-married for any reason.  Shiloh has claimed that if the husband or wife violates the marriage covenant, they can get a divorce.  He has even gone so far as to claim just looking on someone to lust is grounds for divorce as it violates the marriage covenant.  Here is the problem.  According to Shiloh, the marriage covenant is forever and permanent.  He asks me the question, "Do we want (speaking of couples getting married) them making a forever covenant, or viewing their marriage as a contract they can get out of?"  He then goes on to say that it is because of people looking at marriage as a contract, and by the way, according to the Greek Dictionary, a covenant is a contract, divorce is so rampant.  I am harder against divorce than Shiloh is.  I don't consider it Biblical unless their is physical adultery taking place.  I don't view abuse as grounds and certainly not lust in one's heart.  Shiloh has been going around saying that precisely because marriage is a covenant, if someone violates the covenant, they are free to divorce and re-marry.  This makes no sense at all.  If all covenants are permanent as Shiloh and Gary Chapman claim, then if you got married one time, you entered into a permanent covenant.  It makes no difference what happened to cause the marriage to break up.  It is a covenant, and covenants are forever.  If you re-married, you are an adulterer for life.  That is, if you accept what Shiloh says in this thread. 

 

What I have said is that if the husband or wife violates the marriage covenant through sexual immorality divorce is permissible.    I never said that if a man looks at woman lustfully, that it is grounds for divorce.   I think where Butero is confused on that point is that I DID say some time back that pornography counts as marital infidelity.  The word, “pornography” is from the Greek word for fornication.    Pornography is far, far more than just looking at a woman lustfully.  There is immediate, physical sexual gratification that takes place when people look at porn.  They are not just sitting there looking at pictures.   When a person is engaging in porn, they are simply living out what they would do if the person in the pictures were actually physically in the room.  If a person is doing that and they are married, they have been, for all intents and purposes, unfaithful to their spouse and have violated the marriage covenant through sexual immorality.

 

Butero is correct in that I did, in fact, say that the marriage covenant is forever.  I said that because that is how God looks at it.  Matt. 5:32 makes it clear that sexual immorality breaks the marriage covenant and is grounds for divorce.   Historical context is important here.   The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were divorcing their wives for frivolous reasons.  And from God’s perspective, their divorces were invalid.  They were divorcing their wives for a younger woman they were more attracted to.  They were divorcing their wives for any reason they could think of.   In those days, a woman who was not married, didn’t have any real options.  If she had no male relative to take care of her, she was destitute and either had to become a beggar or a prostitute.   Even more to the point, if she DID remarry her new marriage was invalid because she was divorced for invalid reasons.   From God’s perspective she is still married to the man who divorced her and since biblical marriage is monogamous, getting remarried would make her an adulteress and the man she married an adulterer.   But again, the context had to do with frivolous divorce activities.

 

Now, Butero brought up the issue of divorce in the case of abuse.   I am not going to delve too deeply into that as it is outside the scope of our debate only to say that I believe a woman can separate from her husband if he is physically, emotionally, and or sexually abusing her and it is impossible for her to live with him.   If  there are children involved, they need to be removed from the home as well.   I believe that abusers can be changed by the power of God.   If  woman separates from her husband he demonstrates, that he has been truly transformed, then the marriage can be healed.  While there is only one or two valid reasons given in Scripture for divorce, the Bible does not prohibit separation, either temporary, or permanent.  No one is required to remain in an abusive home.

 

If the marital covenant has been violated due to marital infidelity, then divorce is permissible.  Butero is offering up a lot of what he “thinks”  I have said, but he is not representing me, correctly.   He is trying work from a very poor recollection of what he thinks I have said,  and is not basing his arguments on what I am saying now.   I may have said things about this issue, some time back, that I have changed my position on lately due to the fact that I am continually learning and re-learning things.    So to reach back to what I said months or years ago and then to try and hold me accountable for those things today, is not really fair.   I am sure I can find stuff that Butero has said in the past, that he has changed or adjusted his opinion on since he made those comments, so it would be unfair to him to force him to be accountable now for what he no longer believes.

 

The notion that covenants are permanent doesn’t mean that covenants cannot be broken.  When we say that covenants are permanent, we mean that they are not entered into for specific set period of time, at least that is not how God’s covenants work.   Not one of the covenants God has ever made are abrogated.  He upholds them all, to this very day.   And we want ALL of those covenants to be permanent.  What if God decided to abrogate the Noahic covenant?? We would no longer have the promise that God would never destroy the world by water again.  There are aspects of every covenant God made that have a direct bearing on our well-being today.  For any of those covenants to be dissolved, it would spell disaster for us, physically and spiritually.

 

I guess a way for me to say it would be, “Covenants are meant to be permanent.”   They are not made to be broken.   Contracts are usually made for certain periods of time.   I buy a car and the loan is for a set number of months.   I switch from AT & T  to Verizon, there is contract for two years.   I sign a contract for an apartment lease for 12 months, a musical artist will have a ten year recording contract, and so on.   The marital covenant is for forever, biblically speaking.   We live in the era of no-fault divorces where marriages ARE seen as contracts.  It is unfortunate that marriage has been diminished to a contract relationship.   Butero is trying to manufacture a problem that doesn’t exist because he is assigning false values to my argument about the permanence character of a biblical covenant, like the covenant of marriage.   Butero is doing an awful job of framing my arguments because he is so busy adding to what I said in order to paint my position in the worst light possible.   That is not debate.   That is not refutation of the substance of my argument.

 

 

Now, lets examine something else Shiloh said that is utterly false.  Being in a covenant doesn't make the wife equal to the husband.  We are in a covenant relationship with God himself.  We are not equal to God.  If Shiloh was right, we are equal partners with God, and we are not the least bit inferior to him.  Next time God tells me to do something, in his Word or perhaps audibly, I can simply remind him we are equal partners in a covenant, and I refuse to do it.  I then can tell him to submit to me.  You know about that mutual submission stuff in scripture.  What can he say?  He made a covenant with us.  Here is the thing I wait on with great curiosity.  If covenants are permanent, as opposed to contracts, this bolsters Shiloh's view that we have unconditional eternal security.  If on the other hand, if Shiloh reverts back to how he was saying if a man or woman violates the marriage covenant, it breaks it, then it stands to reason if we sin and violate our covenant relationship with God, we lose our salvation.  I can't wait to hear how Shiloh tries to wiggle out of this one.  I am sure he will find a creative way, but those of you who are divorced and re-married, and you are cheering Shiloh on in this debate, you might want to think twice about what his view means for you. 

 

The fact that a husband and wife are in covenant together does speak to equality in partnership.    The argument that we are in covenant relationship with God and are not His equals fails for two reasons:   Number one, we are NOT in a covenant with God.   The NT does not teach that.  The New Covenant  is between God the Father and Jesus, God the Son.   The New Covenant is not between man and God. 

 

We are in relationship with God, and we are in fellowship with God, but we are not “covenant” with God.  We are benefactors of the New Covenant.  The Father and Jesus made the New Covenant; they are the guarantors of the New Covenant.  The New Covenant was cut in the blood of Jesus.   God did not come to man and say, “let’s make a New Covenant.”    Jesus died FOR us.  He is our covenant representative before God the Father.   He made the New Covenant with the Father on our behalf because we are not capable of being in covenant with God because we are stained with sin.   If man could be in covenant with God, Jesus didn’t need to die for us.   The OT proves that man is incapable of being in covenant with God.

 

The reason the New Covenant is permanent and unbreakable is because God the Father and Jesus, God the Son are the ones who are responsible for the covenant and they are incapable of breaking it. It was foreshadowed by Abraham who was not allowed to walk with God between the animal halves in Genesis 15 when God made what we call, “The Abrahamic Covenant.”   God made sure that Abraham didn’t stand with him and walk with Him and that only God stood there between the animals so that only God would get the glory and the honor and the responsibility for the maintenance of the covenant.

 

Number two, we are in relationship with God, but not as equals.  That is true.  But that is a vertical relationship and cannot be compared to the horizontal marriage covenant.   There is no “one-to-one”  comparison between our relationship with God and marriage.  There are some similarities, there is some imagery that can be drawn on, but it would be foolish for me or anyone to suggest that there is a 100% mirrored identical comparison between marriage and our relationship and fellowship with God.

 

Trying to make my comments disparaging to those who have been divorced is not a fair approach to this issue.  There people who are divorced and were divorced for reasons other than marital infidelity.    The reason that it is not a problem for me, or my position is that  is that I believe in the grace of God.   People get divorced for a  variety of reasons.  I am not advocating that it’s okay.  But I know that God, unlike some Christians, is far more gracious to us than we deserve and while He doesn’t overlook our sins and shortcomings, He does forgive them.    So despite what Butero says, my position doesn’t mean that God is forever condemning the person who got divorced because of abuse, or financial reasons, or whatever.

 

 

 

Shiloh is a master at showing how words don't mean what they say.  Look at the example he gave about turning love to hate.  The next time I hear someone quote John 3:16, I can simply turn it around and say love means hate and that God hates the world.  I can turn everything around to suit my fancy whenever I want and make the plain meaning of scripture null and void by slight of hand.  That is what he is doing.  He is using slight of hand to deceive.  I knew that this kind of tactic was to be expected, and I also knew Shiloh would never admit to being wrong.  What I am counting on is that those reading through this thread will be smart enough to see through what he is doing, and I still believe that those who are sincere will know Shiloh is wrong.  That is the only reason I am doing this. 

 

I am amazed that I even need to address this.  My example about the word “love” and how it can be used in  a way that is opposite it’s true meaning isn’t an attempt to say that we can just make words mean whatever we want.    I was using a common, every day example of how in common parlance, we use words in ways that are different than their lexical definitions.  It doesn’t make the meaning null and avoid.  And it is not a slight of hand.   I can use the word “love” in a sarcastic manner that is not in keeping with its actual definition and everyone knows, for example, that I don’t “love” getting cut off in traffic.   The sarcasm is just understood.  I don’t have to spell it out.   So the John 3:16 analogy misses the point and misrepresents what I am actually trying to say.  The point being made is that word usage is far more important than word meaning when dealing with context. I am not claiming that we can arbitrarily assign whatever meaning we want to a given word.    

 

 

I want to move on to another quick point.  What we are dealing with today is something that is older than the world as we know it.  We are dealing with a sin that took place before Adam and Eve were created.  That sin is rebellion.  God establishes a certain order, and people choose to rebel against that order.  In this thread, we are discussing wives who choose to rebel against their husband's authority.  The word rebel in the Hebrew is marah, and it means to resist, disobey, bitter, change, provoke.  The Bible makes it clear that the husband is given authority to rule over his wife, so when she refuses to obey, this is rebellion.  The Bible actually states that the sin of rebellion is the equal of the sin of witchcraft. 

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.  1 Samuel 15:23

 

Shiloh has stated that it is abuse to point out that when a wife disobeys her husband, she is in rebellion.  Shiloh loves to go around being bold and telling it like it is in pointing out things he sees others doing wrong.  Here are a few words Shiloh has used, and people have come forward to talk about how nice it is he is straight forward.  He used the words shallow, backwards, and repressive.  He accused me of having a tyrannical approach to scripture and using sloppy theology.  If that is an example of simply being bold and passionate and telling it as he sees it, I would suggest calling a rebellious wife rebellious is doing the same thing.  I am just calling a spade a spade. 

 

 

First of all, I never said that it is abuse to point out that when a wife disobeys her husband she is in rebellion.     That is nothing but spin.    I said that abuse occurs when a husband is controlling and tyrannical and treats his wife as if she is to relate to him like a slave relates to his master.  In a marriage that IS abusive.  When he “rules”  to the point that it amounts to molding her into an obedient slave to his every whim, THAT is an abuse of his authority and it is an abusive treatment of her.  Butero has a bad habit of assigning things to me that I didn’t say.  Butero changes and alters what I say so that he can have the debate HE wants to have rather than responding to my arguments as they really are.     I have made it clear in the past that I believe a wife should submit to her husband as the Bible says.   But I have also said that her submission is not a blank check to the husband to come down on  her with iron fist.  My point is that God did not give that kind of dictatorial authority to the husband.   Too many husbands only read the part about the wife’s submission as if that is all God said on the matter.    God also said that husbands were to love their wives, to serve their needs, as if they were his own.  They are one flesh and he is to love his wife and treat her as gently as he treats himself.   There is nothing in the Bible that permits men to be tyrants and iron fisted husbands.    His wife is supposed to be his partner, not his doormat, not his slave. 

 

 

Again, as we examine Shiloh's arguments, all he is doing is trying to say the plain meaning of scripture is not so plain.  It always means something different than the obvious. 

 

This is not true.  I said the meaning is in fact, plain.  I have NEVER disputed the meaning of any words in Scripture, ever.   What I have disputed is how the meaning is applied.   You seem unwilling or unable to make that distinction.  

 

 

Here is a hypothetical example of the husband exercising his God given authority.  Lets say he doesn't believe that his wife should wear make-up.  I am using this because it is something I have no concern over, but some do.  I even remember an old bluegrass song called "Let The Church Roll On."  Flatt and Scruggs sang it, and one of the lines said, "There's a woman in the church, (Oh my Lord), has paint on her face (Oh my Lord), what shall we do?  Take a rag and wipe it off, and let the church roll on."  I would play it on the radio sometimes.  I got a kick out of it.  The point is, some men believe this to be sinful, especially in holiness circles.  Lets suppose his wife disagrees and wants to wear make-up.  If he forbids her to do so, and she wears it anyway, she is guilty of rebellion and is no better in the sight of God than a practicing witch.  That is a fact.  Shiloh claims he is taking marriage teachings as a whole to come up with his doctrine.  He is not.  He is making things up by bringing in extra-Biblical false teaching and twisting scripture.  It is mostly the product of false teaching, and no, he is not using more scripture than I am.  I also plan to bring a lot more into this discussion soon.  I am just trying to get past this false covenant teaching first that he won't seem to admit is wrong.  Back to the make-up example.  What does the Bible say about the husband's authority? 

 

...and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.  Genesis 3:16b

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.  For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.  1 Timothy 2:12-14

A lot of people use this to prohibit women from teaching Sunday School or preaching, but that is not what it is primarily referring to.  It is saying that Eve was the one who was deceived, and as a result, God placed her husband over her as her instructor, not the other way around.  If there is a disagreement over something like make-up, he is the final authority.  This may seem a bit unfair, in that all women are paying for Eve being deceived, but it is no more unfair than all mankind having to suffer all the other curses because of Adam and Eve's failures.  Of course, there is no reason to believe any of us would have done better in the same position, so I am not looking to play the blame game here.  I am just pointing out why the man is given the final say on things like this. 

 

Having authority over one’s wife and being an iron-fisted husband are two different things.   The husband rules over the wife, but he does so in humility.   His rulership is a rulership over her needs that is commanded by God to fulfill.   She submits to his authority, but she doesn’t have to submit to abuse and should separate from him if he is impossible to live with, impossible to please, humiliates her in front of family and friends, speaks down to her like a common slave and all that.   The Bible isn’t commanding her to submit to all of that.  That is abuse and if a husband is that way HE is in rebellion against God and has failed as a husband.

 

 

 

 

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he is the image and glory of God:  but the woman is the glory of the man. 

Now, I would imagine what Shiloh will do is go back to Genesis 2:27, where it says,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Adam, the first man was created in God's image, but Eve was created later on.  The Bible doesn't teach Eve was created in the image of God.  Man is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.  That is very clear according to 1 Corinthians.  Even though there has been controversy over it, God is male.  How do I know that?  Because one day I asked him after a debate on the subject came up, and he gave me the answer.  God came to us in the form of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is God and he is male.  You never see God depicted as a female, not even once.  Gnostics teach a male and female side of God, and this false doctrine has been spread by people like Kenneth Copeland, but it is not Biblical.  There is no scripture that backs up Shiloh's claim that the woman was created the equal of the man.  He is once again using his false and extra-Biblical covenant teaching to convey that belief.  He says that because they are in a covenant, they are equal, but as I pointed out, man is in a covenant with God and we are not his equal.  With that, I plan to take a couple of days off from this debate, but I look forward to reading Shiloh's reply.  I hope he comes through with an admission that he was wrong about all covenants being eternal for the sake of those who are divorced and re-married, because otherwise, he leaves you very little hope.

 

First, the Bible clearly teaches that man and woman are created in the image of God.  The image of God doesn’t have that much do with gender.  It has to do with communicable attributes.   God is not both male and female.  I don’t know why you even brought that up, as no one suggested that God is both male and female.  Suggesting that Adam and Eve were made in God’s image doesn’t imply that God has a male and female side to his nature.    It is the opposite, actually.    God gave man certain attributes and he gave woman other divine attributes.   Man and woman are both reflective of the attributes God designed each to have, respectively.    So yes, Gen. 1:27 clearly states that man and woman were made in the image and likeness of God.  To say that woman was not made in the image of God and is therefore, inferior to man is  egregious false doctrine.

 

Secondly, as to I Cor. 11: 7, it is not teaching that the woman is less than the man or is somehow inferior.     Paul is speaking to gender hierarchy but not gender superiority or inferiority.    So Butero is confusing issues.   There is a rank with God as the ultimate spiritual head of all mankind, the husband as the spiritual head of his wife and both parents are the spiritual leaders of the children.  Children are commanded to honor both parents equally.

[Guest Butero]

 

TBefore moving on to anything else, I need to once again re-visit covenants.  What I have been able to show concerning Gary Chapman's article is that he made a blanket statement about covenants as opposed to contracts.  I have shown that according to the Dictionary, a covenant is a contract.  I have shown that 4 of the 5 points Gary Chapmans made about what a covenant is are false, because he made this across the board.  He doesn't say there are any exceptions.  Shiloh is making that claim for Gary Chapman, but Gary Chapman simply says here is the difference between a covenant and a contract.  Shiloh does base much of his beliefs on marriage on Gary Chapman's view of the marriage covenant. 

 

Gary Chapman didn’t make a blanket statement about covenants vs. contracts.   Gary Chapman made a general statement the biblical character of covenants vs. our modern idea concerning the character of contracts.  What you are trying to refute is NOT what Gary Chapman said.   You are trying to refute an argument he didn’t make, in the first place.  Chapman didn’t say, “all covenants in the Bible are exactly like this, 100% of the time, and you will not find a covenant that is not this way.”   He was making a general statement that did not preclude exceptions.     Your argument sets up a false standard that unless every single covenant in the Bible follows his five points, then his entire argument is false.  Would you want to be held to that exact standard?   You are setting up a standard that insulates you from actually addressing what he said about covenants because, you can’t really address the specific things he said, AND because your view of marriage isn’t covenantal, and so you have to find a way to justify your rejection of a covenantal view of marriage. 

 

The bulk of my arguments are not based on what Gary Chapman said.  I used him to point to the fact that marriage isn’t a “sign on the dotted line”   contract.   It is a covenant and the nature of the biblical covenants that God instituted in the Bible are transferrable to the covenant of marriage.   God has a biblical covenant template that applies as much to marriage as it does to any of the other covenants that God instituted.   The nature of the covenants reflect the nature of God.  Unlike contracts, covenants were not made to be broken and God’s covenants, which is the model Gary Chapman is working from, are eternal as long as we are alive.

 

 

Here comes a huge problem for Shiloh, and for anyone who is divorced and has re-married for any reason.  Shiloh has claimed that if the husband or wife violates the marriage covenant, they can get a divorce.  He has even gone so far as to claim just looking on someone to lust is grounds for divorce as it violates the marriage covenant.  Here is the problem.  According to Shiloh, the marriage covenant is forever and permanent.  He asks me the question, "Do we want (speaking of couples getting married) them making a forever covenant, or viewing their marriage as a contract they can get out of?"  He then goes on to say that it is because of people looking at marriage as a contract, and by the way, according to the Greek Dictionary, a covenant is a contract, divorce is so rampant.  I am harder against divorce than Shiloh is.  I don't consider it Biblical unless their is physical adultery taking place.  I don't view abuse as grounds and certainly not lust in one's heart.  Shiloh has been going around saying that precisely because marriage is a covenant, if someone violates the covenant, they are free to divorce and re-marry.  This makes no sense at all.  If all covenants are permanent as Shiloh and Gary Chapman claim, then if you got married one time, you entered into a permanent covenant.  It makes no difference what happened to cause the marriage to break up.  It is a covenant, and covenants are forever.  If you re-married, you are an adulterer for life.  That is, if you accept what Shiloh says in this thread. 

 

What I have said is that if the husband or wife violates the marriage covenant through sexual immorality divorce is permissible.    I never said that if a man looks at woman lustfully, that it is grounds for divorce.   I think where Butero is confused on that point is that I DID say some time back that pornography counts as marital infidelity.  The word, “pornography” is from the Greek word for fornication.    Pornography is far, far more than just looking at a woman lustfully.  There is immediate, physical sexual gratification that takes place when people look at porn.  They are not just sitting there looking at pictures.   When a person is engaging in porn, they are simply living out what they would do if the person in the pictures were actually physically in the room.  If a person is doing that and they are married, they have been, for all intents and purposes, unfaithful to their spouse and have violated the marriage covenant through sexual immorality.

 

Butero is correct in that I did, in fact, say that the marriage covenant is forever.  I said that because that is how God looks at it.  Matt. 5:32 makes it clear that sexual immorality breaks the marriage covenant and is grounds for divorce.   Historical context is important here.   The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were divorcing their wives for frivolous reasons.  And from God’s perspective, their divorces were invalid.  They were divorcing their wives for a younger woman they were more attracted to.  They were divorcing their wives for any reason they could think of.   In those days, a woman who was not married, didn’t have any real options.  If she had no male relative to take care of her, she was destitute and either had to become a beggar or a prostitute.   Even more to the point, if she DID remarry her new marriage was invalid because she was divorced for invalid reasons.   From God’s perspective she is still married to the man who divorced her and since biblical marriage is monogamous, getting remarried would make her an adulteress and the man she married an adulterer.   But again, the context had to do with frivolous divorce activities.

 

Now, Butero brought up the issue of divorce in the case of abuse.   I am not going to delve too deeply into that as it is outside the scope of our debate only to say that I believe a woman can separate from her husband if he is physically, emotionally, and or sexually abusing her and it is impossible for her to live with him.   If  there are children involved, they need to be removed from the home as well.   I believe that abusers can be changed by the power of God.   If  woman separates from her husband he demonstrates, that he has been truly transformed, then the marriage can be healed.  While there is only one or two valid reasons given in Scripture for divorce, the Bible does not prohibit separation, either temporary, or permanent.  No one is required to remain in an abusive home.

 

If the marital covenant has been violated due to marital infidelity, then divorce is permissible.  Butero is offering up a lot of what he “thinks”  I have said, but he is not representing me, correctly.   He is trying work from a very poor recollection of what he thinks I have said,  and is not basing his arguments on what I am saying now.   I may have said things about this issue, some time back, that I have changed my position on lately due to the fact that I am continually learning and re-learning things.    So to reach back to what I said months or years ago and then to try and hold me accountable for those things today, is not really fair.   I am sure I can find stuff that Butero has said in the past, that he has changed or adjusted his opinion on since he made those comments, so it would be unfair to him to force him to be accountable now for what he no longer believes.

 

The notion that covenants are permanent doesn’t mean that covenants cannot be broken.  When we say that covenants are permanent, we mean that they are not entered into for specific set period of time, at least that is not how God’s covenants work.   Not one of the covenants God has ever made are abrogated.  He upholds them all, to this very day.   And we want ALL of those covenants to be permanent.  What if God decided to abrogate the Noahic covenant?? We would no longer have the promise that God would never destroy the world by water again.  There are aspects of every covenant God made that have a direct bearing on our well-being today.  For any of those covenants to be dissolved, it would spell disaster for us, physically and spiritually.

 

I guess a way for me to say it would be, “Covenants are meant to be permanent.”   They are not made to be broken.   Contracts are usually made for certain periods of time.   I buy a car and the loan is for a set number of months.   I switch from AT & T  to Verizon, there is contract for two years.   I sign a contract for an apartment lease for 12 months, a musical artist will have a ten year recording contract, and so on.   The marital covenant is for forever, biblically speaking.   We live in the era of no-fault divorces where marriages ARE seen as contracts.  It is unfortunate that marriage has been diminished to a contract relationship.   Butero is trying to manufacture a problem that doesn’t exist because he is assigning false values to my argument about the permanence character of a biblical covenant, like the covenant of marriage.   Butero is doing an awful job of framing my arguments because he is so busy adding to what I said in order to paint my position in the worst light possible.   That is not debate.   That is not refutation of the substance of my argument.

 

 

Now, lets examine something else Shiloh said that is utterly false.  Being in a covenant doesn't make the wife equal to the husband.  We are in a covenant relationship with God himself.  We are not equal to God.  If Shiloh was right, we are equal partners with God, and we are not the least bit inferior to him.  Next time God tells me to do something, in his Word or perhaps audibly, I can simply remind him we are equal partners in a covenant, and I refuse to do it.  I then can tell him to submit to me.  You know about that mutual submission stuff in scripture.  What can he say?  He made a covenant with us.  Here is the thing I wait on with great curiosity.  If covenants are permanent, as opposed to contracts, this bolsters Shiloh's view that we have unconditional eternal security.  If on the other hand, if Shiloh reverts back to how he was saying if a man or woman violates the marriage covenant, it breaks it, then it stands to reason if we sin and violate our covenant relationship with God, we lose our salvation.  I can't wait to hear how Shiloh tries to wiggle out of this one.  I am sure he will find a creative way, but those of you who are divorced and re-married, and you are cheering Shiloh on in this debate, you might want to think twice about what his view means for you. 

 

The fact that a husband and wife are in covenant together does speak to equality in partnership.    The argument that we are in covenant relationship with God and are not His equals fails for two reasons:   Number one, we are NOT in a covenant with God.   The NT does not teach that.  The New Covenant  is between God the Father and Jesus, God the Son.   The New Covenant is not between man and God. 

 

We are in relationship with God, and we are in fellowship with God, but we are not “covenant” with God.  We are benefactors of the New Covenant.  The Father and Jesus made the New Covenant; they are the guarantors of the New Covenant.  The New Covenant was cut in the blood of Jesus.   God did not come to man and say, “let’s make a New Covenant.”    Jesus died FOR us.  He is our covenant representative before God the Father.   He made the New Covenant with the Father on our behalf because we are not capable of being in covenant with God because we are stained with sin.   If man could be in covenant with God, Jesus didn’t need to die for us.   The OT proves that man is incapable of being in covenant with God.

 

The reason the New Covenant is permanent and unbreakable is because God the Father and Jesus, God the Son are the ones who are responsible for the covenant and they are incapable of breaking it. It was foreshadowed by Abraham who was not allowed to walk with God between the animal halves in Genesis 15 when God made what we call, “The Abrahamic Covenant.”   God made sure that Abraham didn’t stand with him and walk with Him and that only God stood there between the animals so that only God would get the glory and the honor and the responsibility for the maintenance of the covenant.

 

Number two, we are in relationship with God, but not as equals.  That is true.  But that is a vertical relationship and cannot be compared to the horizontal marriage covenant.   There is no “one-to-one”  comparison between our relationship with God and marriage.  There are some similarities, there is some imagery that can be drawn on, but it would be foolish for me or anyone to suggest that there is a 100% mirrored identical comparison between marriage and our relationship and fellowship with God.

 

Trying to make my comments disparaging to those who have been divorced is not a fair approach to this issue.  There people who are divorced and were divorced for reasons other than marital infidelity.    The reason that it is not a problem for me, or my position is that  is that I believe in the grace of God.   People get divorced for a  variety of reasons.  I am not advocating that it’s okay.  But I know that God, unlike some Christians, is far more gracious to us than we deserve and while He doesn’t overlook our sins and shortcomings, He does forgive them.    So despite what Butero says, my position doesn’t mean that God is forever condemning the person who got divorced because of abuse, or financial reasons, or whatever.

 

 

 

Shiloh is a master at showing how words don't mean what they say.  Look at the example he gave about turning love to hate.  The next time I hear someone quote John 3:16, I can simply turn it around and say love means hate and that God hates the world.  I can turn everything around to suit my fancy whenever I want and make the plain meaning of scripture null and void by slight of hand.  That is what he is doing.  He is using slight of hand to deceive.  I knew that this kind of tactic was to be expected, and I also knew Shiloh would never admit to being wrong.  What I am counting on is that those reading through this thread will be smart enough to see through what he is doing, and I still believe that those who are sincere will know Shiloh is wrong.  That is the only reason I am doing this. 

 

I am amazed that I even need to address this.  My example about the word “love” and how it can be used in  a way that is opposite it’s true meaning isn’t an attempt to say that we can just make words mean whatever we want.    I was using a common, every day example of how in common parlance, we use words in ways that are different than their lexical definitions.  It doesn’t make the meaning null and avoid.  And it is not a slight of hand.   I can use the word “love” in a sarcastic manner that is not in keeping with its actual definition and everyone knows, for example, that I don’t “love” getting cut off in traffic.   The sarcasm is just understood.  I don’t have to spell it out.   So the John 3:16 analogy misses the point and misrepresents what I am actually trying to say.  The point being made is that word usage is far more important than word meaning when dealing with context. I am not claiming that we can arbitrarily assign whatever meaning we want to a given word.    

 

 

I want to move on to another quick point.  What we are dealing with today is something that is older than the world as we know it.  We are dealing with a sin that took place before Adam and Eve were created.  That sin is rebellion.  God establishes a certain order, and people choose to rebel against that order.  In this thread, we are discussing wives who choose to rebel against their husband's authority.  The word rebel in the Hebrew is marah, and it means to resist, disobey, bitter, change, provoke.  The Bible makes it clear that the husband is given authority to rule over his wife, so when she refuses to obey, this is rebellion.  The Bible actually states that the sin of rebellion is the equal of the sin of witchcraft. 

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.  1 Samuel 15:23

 

Shiloh has stated that it is abuse to point out that when a wife disobeys her husband, she is in rebellion.  Shiloh loves to go around being bold and telling it like it is in pointing out things he sees others doing wrong.  Here are a few words Shiloh has used, and people have come forward to talk about how nice it is he is straight forward.  He used the words shallow, backwards, and repressive.  He accused me of having a tyrannical approach to scripture and using sloppy theology.  If that is an example of simply being bold and passionate and telling it as he sees it, I would suggest calling a rebellious wife rebellious is doing the same thing.  I am just calling a spade a spade. 

 

 

First of all, I never said that it is abuse to point out that when a wife disobeys her husband she is in rebellion.     That is nothing but spin.    I said that abuse occurs when a husband is controlling and tyrannical and treats his wife as if she is to relate to him like a slave relates to his master.  In a marriage that IS abusive.  When he “rules”  to the point that it amounts to molding her into an obedient slave to his every whim, THAT is an abuse of his authority and it is an abusive treatment of her.  Butero has a bad habit of assigning things to me that I didn’t say.  Butero changes and alters what I say so that he can have the debate HE wants to have rather than responding to my arguments as they really are.     I have made it clear in the past that I believe a wife should submit to her husband as the Bible says.   But I have also said that her submission is not a blank check to the husband to come down on  her with iron fist.  My point is that God did not give that kind of dictatorial authority to the husband.   Too many husbands only read the part about the wife’s submission as if that is all God said on the matter.    God also said that husbands were to love their wives, to serve their needs, as if they were his own.  They are one flesh and he is to love his wife and treat her as gently as he treats himself.   There is nothing in the Bible that permits men to be tyrants and iron fisted husbands.    His wife is supposed to be his partner, not his doormat, not his slave. 

 

 

Again, as we examine Shiloh's arguments, all he is doing is trying to say the plain meaning of scripture is not so plain.  It always means something different than the obvious. 

 

This is not true.  I said the meaning is in fact, plain.  I have NEVER disputed the meaning of any words in Scripture, ever.   What I have disputed is how the meaning is applied.   You seem unwilling or unable to make that distinction.  

 

 

Here is a hypothetical example of the husband exercising his God given authority.  Lets say he doesn't believe that his wife should wear make-up.  I am using this because it is something I have no concern over, but some do.  I even remember an old bluegrass song called "Let The Church Roll On."  Flatt and Scruggs sang it, and one of the lines said, "There's a woman in the church, (Oh my Lord), has paint on her face (Oh my Lord), what shall we do?  Take a rag and wipe it off, and let the church roll on."  I would play it on the radio sometimes.  I got a kick out of it.  The point is, some men believe this to be sinful, especially in holiness circles.  Lets suppose his wife disagrees and wants to wear make-up.  If he forbids her to do so, and she wears it anyway, she is guilty of rebellion and is no better in the sight of God than a practicing witch.  That is a fact.  Shiloh claims he is taking marriage teachings as a whole to come up with his doctrine.  He is not.  He is making things up by bringing in extra-Biblical false teaching and twisting scripture.  It is mostly the product of false teaching, and no, he is not using more scripture than I am.  I also plan to bring a lot more into this discussion soon.  I am just trying to get past this false covenant teaching first that he won't seem to admit is wrong.  Back to the make-up example.  What does the Bible say about the husband's authority? 

 

...and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.  Genesis 3:16b

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.  For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.  1 Timothy 2:12-14

A lot of people use this to prohibit women from teaching Sunday School or preaching, but that is not what it is primarily referring to.  It is saying that Eve was the one who was deceived, and as a result, God placed her husband over her as her instructor, not the other way around.  If there is a disagreement over something like make-up, he is the final authority.  This may seem a bit unfair, in that all women are paying for Eve being deceived, but it is no more unfair than all mankind having to suffer all the other curses because of Adam and Eve's failures.  Of course, there is no reason to believe any of us would have done better in the same position, so I am not looking to play the blame game here.  I am just pointing out why the man is given the final say on things like this. 

 

Having authority over one’s wife and being an iron-fisted husband are two different things.   The husband rules over the wife, but he does so in humility.   His rulership is a rulership over her needs that is commanded by God to fulfill.   She submits to his authority, but she doesn’t have to submit to abuse and should separate from him if he is impossible to live with, impossible to please, humiliates her in front of family and friends, speaks down to her like a common slave and all that.   The Bible isn’t commanding her to submit to all of that.  That is abuse and if a husband is that way HE is in rebellion against God and has failed as a husband.

 

 

 

 

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he is the image and glory of God:  but the woman is the glory of the man. 

Now, I would imagine what Shiloh will do is go back to Genesis 2:27, where it says,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Adam, the first man was created in God's image, but Eve was created later on.  The Bible doesn't teach Eve was created in the image of God.  Man is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.  That is very clear according to 1 Corinthians.  Even though there has been controversy over it, God is male.  How do I know that?  Because one day I asked him after a debate on the subject came up, and he gave me the answer.  God came to us in the form of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is God and he is male.  You never see God depicted as a female, not even once.  Gnostics teach a male and female side of God, and this false doctrine has been spread by people like Kenneth Copeland, but it is not Biblical.  There is no scripture that backs up Shiloh's claim that the woman was created the equal of the man.  He is once again using his false and extra-Biblical covenant teaching to convey that belief.  He says that because they are in a covenant, they are equal, but as I pointed out, man is in a covenant with God and we are not his equal.  With that, I plan to take a couple of days off from this debate, but I look forward to reading Shiloh's reply.  I hope he comes through with an admission that he was wrong about all covenants being eternal for the sake of those who are divorced and re-married, because otherwise, he leaves you very little hope.

 

First, the Bible clearly teaches that man and woman are created in the image of God.  The image of God doesn’t have that much do with gender.  It has to do with communicable attributes.   God is not both male and female.  I don’t know why you even brought that up, as no one suggested that God is both male and female.  Suggesting that Adam and Eve were made in God’s image doesn’t imply that God has a male and female side to his nature.    It is the opposite, actually.    God gave man certain attributes and he gave woman other divine attributes.   Man and woman are both reflective of the attributes God designed each to have, respectively.    So yes, Gen. 1:27 clearly states that man and woman were made in the image and likeness of God.  To say that woman was not made in the image of God and is therefore, inferior to man is  egregious false doctrine.

 

Secondly, as to I Cor. 11: 7, it is not teaching that the woman is less than the man or is somehow inferior.     Paul is speaking to gender hierarchy but not gender superiority or inferiority.    So Butero is confusing issues.   There is a rank with God as the ultimate spiritual head of all mankind, the husband as the spiritual head of his wife and both parents are the spiritual leaders of the children.  Children are commanded to honor both parents equally.

[Guest Butero]

That last post was not my reply.  I was having problems getting my post to work, and I got tired of the mess and hit the reply button to start over.  The real reply will be hopefully posted shortly.  Sorry for any confusion.